TV presenter Dan Walker raises £30,000 for Sheffield charities in ten minutes

Sheffield 1000 hopes to have 1,000 people in the city contributing £1 a week to be spent on local causes. So far, with 600 donors signed up, the charity has provided £22,000 to 22 different charities in the area.

At an event in Sheffield this week, the charity launched its new business offering, as Westfield Health CEO Dave Capper promised to match corporate donations to Sheffield 1000 up to £50,000.

Within minutes, fifteen businesses had pledged donations of £1,000 each, meaning a £30,000 windfall for the charity.

“We’re not one charity, we’re a funnel to hundreds more,” said Dan. An independent panel selects the causes to benefit from the charity’s fundraising

“What we wanted to do was democratise charity,” he tells The Yorkshire Post. “It’s great to get big one-off donations, but if people are invested in where their donations go it makes such a difference.

“If we get a thousand people signed up to donate £1 each week, that’s a thousand people who are connected to where that money goes.”

As founder and patron of Sheffield 1000, Dan hopes the model he’s created with others will spread to other cities across the country.

"This model is portable,” he says. “We’ve done the work in setting it up and figuring out the legal framework, and I would be more than happy to see others take this model elsewhere in the country.”